


An Unauthorized Autobiography of all our Sins Disremembered

by Count_B



Category: Bandom, The Matches
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor Who Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-09
Updated: 2008-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Count_B/pseuds/Count_B
Summary: Shawn Harris is a timelord.





	An Unauthorized Autobiography of all our Sins Disremembered

"I think we've already been to the Brussells show," Shawn leans back and props his feet up on the TARDIS console. "Matt?"  
  
With a sigh, Matt pulls up a screen on the computer. He squints at it before turning back to Shawn. "It looks like we've hit everywhere but Hamburg and Leeds."  
  
"What about Dublin?" Jon asks, tossing a ball from hand to hand, restless already. Matt tries not to wince when he almost drops it on the console.  
  
"We were there last week. Remember?" Justin groans, "Hangovers so bad we ended up in the stone age?"  
  
"Oh yeah." Jon grins. "Well, can't we just go there for fun then?"  
  
"No." Matt frowns. "Work first. It's hard enough not playing the new songs."  
  
Shawn pushes a button and flips a couple switches dramatically, like the guys don't know he's just adjusting the thermostat. He whines, "Why not though? They'll love the new songs."  
  
"And you know this how?"  
  
"Intuition!" Shawn's grin makes Matt think maybe he was always a little too flash to follow the rules of the timelords. "We could reinvent modern music!"  
  
"One song," Matt compromises, "Just one song, in Leeds, and no more asking. And we have to finish out the tour before you get to take us to Planet Timbuktu in the year five trillion." He ignores the way Jon and Justin roll their eyes at him.  
  
"There is no Planet Timbuktu," Shawn contradicts, "It's a galaxy actually. And five trillion's not real either." He starts running around, picking up papers and tossing them over his shoulder. "I was thinking maybe we should do the one with the ba-da-da and the whoo, with the-" he gives Matt a quizzical look, "You know the one I mean? Aha!" He holds the page of lyrics up and does a little dance around the room, ruffling Jon's hair and hugging Justin before planting a wet smack on Matt's cheek. "This will be fabulous!"  
  
~  
  
When the three guys show up in the department store in a flurry of movement and wild hair, Jon finds it infinitely more interesting than the floral sheets his mother is looking at. And that's before he sees the thing following them, something that looks like it belongs in a b-movie.  
  
It's actually unclear who is chasing and who is being chased, especially when the guy who looks like he fell into a costume closet approaches one of the beds. "You know The Shadow Proclamation forbids your kind to form brood nests here. They'll eat these people alive!"  
  
Jon can't actually understand the slurred syllables of the thing, but he gets the gist of it when one of the other guys interrupts, "What do you mean, 'it's their nature'? Like that makes it okay? They've done nothing to deserve being eaten."  
  
Bouncing on its feet near the bed, which seems to pulse, the thing seems angry and about ready to pounce. Jon doesn't see any signs of a movie camera, and as he gets closer he wonders… The lumps and wrinkles and color of the thing, the squelching way it moves, it feels too authentic to be a student film project. If he didn't know better, he'd almost say it's real.  
  
"I'm sorry. I hate to do this but…" The birdsnest hair keeps moving as the guy pauses and pats down all his pockets. "Where's my lighter? They're hatching, we don't have much time!" The bed's not pulsing so much as writhing now and it's instinct as much as anything that has Jon pulling a book of matches from his pocket and dropping a lit one in the middle of it.  
  
The sounds coming from the bed are almost screaming. They all cover their ears, but the movement quickly stills as the smoldering remains set off the fire alarm. The sprinklers turn on. "Just go," the hair bounces and wags like a scolding finger, "Leave this planet and we won't hold a grudge." The three guys take off down the up escalator and Jon stares in their wake.  
  
"You heard the man," Jon tells the thing. He chases after the men, panting outside the department store where all he sees is a minibus. They're gone, he lost them.  
  
Then the door to the minibus opens, "Oh, it's you. Thank you for the matches. Hey, do you want to come with us?" The question sounds creepy, even though Jon's the one who was following them.  
  
"How old are you?" another voice asks from the doorway, the speaker adjusting a pair of glasses. "Look at him, Shawn, you can't keep him."  
  
"Fuck off, I'm sixteen," Jon protests.  
  
"See, he's underage," the guy in glasses objects even as the first guy comes out of the minibus with a flourish. "You are not taking a minor with us. I like not being in jail."  
  
"I'm Shawn Harris," he grins, and bows elaborately. "You have earned a boon, aiding me the way you did."  
  
"I'm trying not to sound, well, crazy." Jon runs his fingers through the beginning of a promising fro. "But what the hell was that?"  
  
"That was an alien," Shawn stage-whispers, hand cupped around his mouth.  
  
"An alien?"  
  
"Indeed." Shawn studies his nails nonchalantly, before adding, "That was an alien, and so am I."  
  
"Riiiight." Only an alien would think people wear three vests and two scarves and pinstriped pants all at the same time, but this is Oakland. No alien would bother coming to a place as boring as Oakland. Jon raises his eyebrows at the minibus. "And that's probably your spaceship."  
  
"Exactly! This is Matt and Justin, and this," he gestures at the minibus, "is my TARDIS. Do you want to come, just for a looksie?"  
  
"Shawn," Matt cautions.  
  
"I can have him home for dinner. Besides, weren't you younger than him when you started traveling with me?"  
  
On the inside, the minibus is clearly the wrong size, but it doesn't look like a spaceship. It looks like a guy's bedroom, clothes and video games all over the place. "Whoa."  
  
"Yes, it's bigger on the outside than on the inside."  
  
"No, I meant- Is that an old school Atari? And…this game's not out yet!"  
  
"Oh, didn't I mention?" Shawn picks up a fedora and sets it on his head with a fake innocent look on his face. "This doesn't just travel space, it also travels time."  
  
~  
  
The strangest thing about not being on earth is the way it's not strange at all. There is something about Shawn that is stranger than any _place_ they could go. He even makes staying in present day Oakland seem special, though Justin gets a headache if he thinks too hard about how to define present day.  
  
But though the tentacled alien in front of them makes Justin blink and Matt narrow his eyes, it doesn't really faze anyone. The voice asking for their coats and hats is soothing, and Shawn hands over a bowler hat with a very long feather, moving his hatpin to his lapel.  
  
"Thanks," Jon says as he hands over his jacket and fedora, but it doesn't react, at least not that Justin can see.  
  
"We live to serve."  
  
"Where is your master?" Shawn asks, adjusting his scarf.  
  
"Follow me," another of the tentacled aliens comes out from the shadows.  
  
"So." Jon's impatient, like usual. "What are you?"  
  
"We are the Ood," the guide answers, "We live to serve." It holds a door for them, and inside seems to be a sensible office.  
  
The chair behind the desk seems to be empty, and when the hologram flickers on, Justin realizes that's because it is. "I seem to have stepped out of the office, but do come again," it offers, and it feels too convenient to be a coincidence.  
  
"Research," Shawn sighs. "We'll do a little research, then we'll come for him." His walk is determined as he leads them back to the bay where the TARDIS was parked.  
  
The bay is conspicuously empty now, and no matter how much they blink, it's not changing.  
  
"Where's the TARDIS?" Shawn's freaking out, and even Matt's hand on his shoulder isn't helping. "What have they done with my TARDIS?"  
  
"Look," Matt's face is even more serious than usual. "We'll find it. But they know we'd come back here, so we have to run."  
  
They split up, Shawn and Justin taking off down one hall. They run for a few minutes, before Shawn starts to relax and Justin stops, catching his breath. "I would be more careful when in enemy territory," an insidious voice suggests from just behind him.  
  
Justin freezes, trying not to shiver at the gun pointed at him. He doesn't know what this one will do to him, but the look on Shawn's face when he turns, the way he's too calm and cheery, suggests it would be bad.  
  
"Now I'm not usually one for violence," Shawn offers nonchalantly as he advances on the alien pointing the gun at Justin. "It's never really the answer." He removes the hatpin from his lapel. "But sometimes I get tired of answers, and you don't want to know what happens then. You're going to let him go, you're going to tell me where my ship is, and then you are going to let us leave. You'll stop subjugating every alien species you come across, or I'm coming for you, and I never lie."  
  
Shawn usually relies on his big mouth when things go wrong, but Justin knows the hatpin is his best tool. He just hopes Shawn can use it on the gun before it gets used.  
  
~  
  
"Are you even old enough to be a student teacher?" Matt eyes the man in the suit. There's not anything wrong about what he's wearing, not really. But the spotted tie, striped suit, and striped vest all feel kind of flamboyant for a teacher. And maybe he's wrong, but don't most student teachers just wear khakis and a dress shirt?  
  
"That's what the certificate says," he smiles with a little too much teeth and flashes a small card in what looks like a passport wallet.  
  
The certificate looks professional and very official, but Matt narrows his eyes at the guy anyhow. "You carry that with you?"  
  
"Don't you have homework to do?"  
  
"It's done." Matt snatches his folder from Justin, who looks sheepish about copying it. The student teacher, Mr. Harris according to the blackboard, fiddles with the essay like he has no idea what he's supposed to do with it.  
  
"You don't want to ask me any questions." Mr. Harris intones with a look.  
  
"Right. Where did you go to college?"  
  
"Humans have all the good ideas! Oh, sure, timelord, able to regenerate and navigate time and space. But where are all the _cool_ abilities? Why couldn't I be a Jedi?"  
  
"So that's a no on the student teacher thing." Matt's not sure who they're supposed to report that to, but he's making a mental list of options. He hopes Mr. Harris isn't a serial killer or a pedophile or something worse.  
  
"Star Wars is pretty cool," Justin admits, apparently unfazed by the imposter in the room. "But it's just movies. And. Ewoks."  
  
"He's right. Ewoks." Matt makes an unimpressed face.  
  
"Don't downplay the Ewoks just bec-"  
  
There's a scream from the hallway. "Chick fight?" Justin asks and Matt confirms, "Chick fight."  
  
When he moves towards the door, Matt assumes Mr. Harris is going to try to stop the fight. His mouth opens to explain how that's futile, but shuts again when Mr. Harris instead turns the lock.  
  
"That's not a chick fight," he announces without even looking out the glass. "That is _trouble_."  
  
The screaming gets louder and other classroom doors begin slamming shut. Justin drops his backpack and heads to the safety glass next to the door, and Matt reluctantly follows. He doesn't want to know what they'll see.  
  
"…is this a prank?" Matt blinks, but there's still a pack of Ewoks walking down the hallway.  
  
Mr. Harris swears. "I wish it was."  
  
"Why's no one in the hall?" Justin asks. "They're harmless, right?"  
  
From their door, they can see a girl leaving the bathroom. She adjusts her backback and turns towards the math hall, when she's swarmed by the Ewoks, and that's all they can see is her going down under a pile of them.  
  
It's maybe five minutes before they start walking again. Matt can't look at the stain they've left on the floor, and he tries not to cringe too much when they get close enough he can see the blood and bits of her on their faces.  
  
"Awww," Mr. Harris coos. "Look at those big eyes."  
  
"Ewoks. Evil, demon-possessed Ewoks, what the hell?" Matt doesn't want to look in their eyes.  
  
"But aren't they cute?"  
  
"I don't care." Matt crosses his arms. "Mr. Harris, there are evil Ewoks out there eating people. People I know. Now I might not like them, I might get made fun of by them, but I prefer not to have dead people around."  
  
"Just call me Shawn," Mr. Harris says, rolling his eyes. "They're not really Ewoks. They're kind of like teddy bear pirhannas, more than anything. If we can just keep them from feeding for fifteen minutes, they'll give up and go somewhere easier."  
  
Justin grabs a couple metersticks from the corner. "Good think we've been acting out Shakespeare." He gives one to Matt and they open the door, hoping they can fake they know what they're doing for long enough.  
  
"I'm gonna pull the fire alarm so we can clear the building," Matt decides, inching his way out the door and along the wall to the nearest switch. "Just don't let them eat me."  
  
The Ewoks are drawn to the movement, and Justin tries to hold them off with his meterstick, even as Shawn keeps beaming at them. "A little help? They're trying to eat you." He pauses and whacks one on the nose. "And more important, _they're trying to eat us_."  
  
"Right." Shawn grabs another meterstick and rushes into the fray, slapping the stick against the Ewoks just hard enough to daze them.  
  
Matt pulls the lever and between the crowds of scared people, the siren, and the flashing lights, fighting the Ewoks feels like nothing. "Do you do this much?"  
  
"Oh, you know. A bit. Now and then." Shawn grins and rounds on the cluster of Ewoks. "This is nothing."  
  
It may be nothing to him, but the fifteen minutes feel like the longest in Matt's life, and he's surprised when they give up and start running away on their short legs.  
  
"Do you want to check out my TARDIS?" Shawn grins again, just as crazy as the look on his face as they held off the Ewok things.  
  
"Uh." Matt puts his hands on his hips. "Don't think that just because you're allegedly an alien, you get to use creepy pick-up lines all the time."  
  
"Nono, I swear, that's what the ship's called. Time And Relative Dimension In Space, TARDIS. Come on, it'll be fun!"  
  
Matt knows they should both be running for the hills, but instead he nods. "Just to see. Five minutes."  
  
~  
  
To hear Matt talk about it, the TARDIS had been such a mass of chaos when they first joined Shawn that the inherent mess wasn't immediately apparent. But with the TARDIS' crew quadrupled, the mess is exponentially worse, and Shawn can't be bothered about it as long as there are places to see, moments of history to witness.  
  
Matt prods the corner with the toe of his shoe, face turned away and visibly wincing. "I think this mold is sentient." He shudders. "I'm not getting close to that. It might give me some alien superplague."  
  
"It could be alien penicillin," Jon points out, leaning on Matt's shoulder to get a closer look. "What if it saves the universe?"  
  
"I don't care," Matt gags as the mold burbles a rotten gas. "This could give me cancer."  
  
Shawn's distracted as he walks past, but he double-takes and he gets between Jon and the mold before the sponge is even wet. "You can't do that! You'll kill it!"  
  
"Please kill it," Matt pleads faintly, still looking like he's about to be sick.  
  
"But it's _mine_ ," Shawn whines. "It's my pet. You like tropical fish, I like exotic mold. I call this one Bobo." He turns around and crouches down, cooing over it.  
  
"Kill it. Kill it and then burn the sponge." When Shawn reaches out a bare finger to touch the mold, Matt's color turns from pale to almost green and with a hand clapped over his mouth, he runs out of the room.  
  
"So. Where did you pick up Bobo?"  
  
"I think he was half a sandwich in a past life."  
  
"Wow. That's pretty gross dude." Jon doesn't think he grosses out that easy, but leftovers shouldn't become a person's pet. If that's normal, maybe he's still not adjusted to this whole outer space time travel thing.  
  
"I see your point." Shawn sighs and gestures at the corner, "Oh, go ahead. Let Matt have his clean spaces for now."  
  
~  
  
Matt leans back and watches everyone in the main room of the TARDIS. Shawn's feet are up on the console again, a fedora tipped over his face. He's either napping or thinking; it's hard to say which. Jon's trying to play two video games at the same time, claiming the TARDIS is bound to make it easier. He's winning one of the games anyhow.  
  
All that is fairly normal for the middle of a trip. Less normal is Justin, who has been restlessly moving around the cabin for the whole trip. He fidgets with the controls, wanders over to stare at the chronometer, and fiddles with the books and magazines scattered in heaps on the floor.  
  
"Welcome to London," Shawn announces when the TARDIS jerks to a stop. If it were an actual minibus, the brakes would be shrieking. "I'm off for some fish and chips, minus the fish. Do try not to get mobbed by the locals!"  
  
Matt doesn't bother to roll his eyes; Shawn is the only one who has ever actually been mobbed by locals, and he seems mainly amused by the attention. Jon runs after Shawn, offering to eat the fish for him, and Matt stakes out the door.  
  
His arms are crossed, and Matt gives Justin a stern look when he goes to leave. "When are you going to tell him?"  
  
Justin winces and pushes his glasses up on his face. He'd quit wearing them most of the time, but lately they've made a reappearance. "I, uh."  
  
"You have to tell him," Matt sighs. "I'm not gonna do it for you, but he needs to hear it." He pats Justin on the shoulder. Matt isn't going to tell him Shawn will understand, but he knows Justin's not going to just change his mind.  
  
Soho in the seventies isn't Matt's favorite, but he can understand why it appeals to Shawn. They embrace his weirdness there in a way few places or times do. It can swallow him whole and hide him completely. Matt's stomach grumbles, and he wishes he could have joined Shawn and Jon.  
  
He can't catch up now, but he needed to talk to Justin. Matt resigns himself to whatever's on the TARDIS, knowing before long they all have to come back so they can head home.  
  
After seeing London again, Oakland feels almost too much like Oakland.  
  
Matt gives Justin a look. He knows it's time, and he doesn't want to be the one to explain. Shawn deserves to hear it from Justin himself.  
  
"I'm going home."  
  
"That's lovely," Shawn grins, "Say hello to your mother for me."  
  
"No." Justin bites his lip and glances at Matt. Matt nods and Justin puts his hand on Shawn's arm. "I'm. I can't come back this time."  
  
Shawn stills and it's the hardest thing to watch, someone so alive he has two hearts unable to move. Matt stays by the console, knowing this isn't his conversation to have.  
  
Justin winces. "My family needs me." There's more to it than that, but they all know what he means and it hurts less to leave it all unsaid.  
  
After a pause, Shawn nods. "There have been a couple times things went a bit beyond adventure," he concedes. "But still, isn't it exciting?"  
  
"Unbelievable." Justin hugs him goodbye and Matt tries to convince himself not to cry. It's hard to imagine still getting to see the whole of time and space but without Justin. "Don't let him get lost or anything," he tells Matt when they hug, "I still plan on being your biggest fan."  
  
~  
  
With all the other places in time and space, Justin's not sure why they're on earth once more. It's only maybe a year in the future, and the only reason it's really interesting to him is the fact at least they're out of Cali.  
  
Not that he's sure New Jersey is actually an improvement.  
  
He asks Shawn what he expects to see, and Shawn adjusts his hat. "Action, adventure, cheap manufactured quasi-foodstuffs that I get ill just from looking at!"  
  
"No, dude, it'll be totally fun," Jon interjects. "We can go on the…"  
  
Matt picks up a map from the ground and brushes off the dirt. "The Pink Cloud?" They look around the amusement park, taking in the wide range of pastels and how everything seems to glitter. Justin's feeling even more skeptical, but he learned long ago that sometimes it's best just to humor the timelord.  
  
Although sometimes Justin has to wonder why he does it. "Was it just me, or was a unicorn running that ride?" he asks as Shawn picks up his hat and Matt unfolds the map again.  
  
"Actually…" Shawn squints at the attendant. "They're aliens, of course. But those collars mean they're under some kind of control."  
  
Five minutes later, they're crowded around a pink and silver picnic table, the map spread out as Shawn explains his brilliant plan. And like most of Shawn's plans, Justin thinks this one is doomed before it's even begun.  
  
But then, it's a plan where Shawn tries to find out who is behind the unicorns' captivity while Justin has to break into the office and shut down whatever's keeping the unicorns subdued. There's just no chance it'll work.  
  
When crawling down a ventilation shaft to try to figure out how some aliens are being controlled, there's nothing more awkward than running into someone else. "Fuck." The sound echoes against the aluminum, then softer, "Fuck. Don't call the cops, okay?"  
  
"Um."  
  
"Fuck, do whatever, fine, but can we, uh, get unstuck first? I don't have anything to open the vent here."  
  
Justin rolls his screwdriver towards the other guy. "Can you pry it off maybe?"  
  
It feels like a lot of time has passed since he ran into the pair of black boots and the person attached, but it's probably just a couple minutes of the echoing metallic sounds of prying before the grate crashing to the floor.  
  
They jump down and dust themselves off before the stranger hands back Justin's screwdriver. "Um. Thanks. How much trouble would you say I'm in?" He pushes his glasses further up on his nose.  
  
Justin grins sheepishly. "As much as me if we get caught."  
  
"Oh." He grins back brightly and unexpectedly. "I'm Mikey."  
  
"Justin." He looks around for something that seems out of place. "So, uh, what're you doing here?"  
  
"I'm a unicorn rights activist." Mikey points to the pin he's wearing. "The manager was lying when I asked about them so I'm looking for evidence of...something. What about you?"  
  
"Um." Justin opens a cabinet and peers in, hoping the transmitter is really obvious. "Basically the same thing?" He frowns into the cabinet, which looks like just office supplies, and moves on to the next.  
  
"What's that?" Mikey asks, and Justin raises his eyebrows when he sees the potted tree Mikey's pointing at. Then he notices; there's a cable running up the trunk.  
  
Justin digs through the pot, pushing aside dirt to reveal a box with blinking, angry lights. "I don't know how to turn this off." He can see buttons and switches running along one side, but he's afraid he'll just hurt the unicorns if he doesn't get it right the first time.  
  
Mikey tugs the box from him and tosses it on the floor. He stomps until the casing has cracked open and none of the lights are blinking, the circuit-boards shattered. "Oh. I hope that's what you meant," he offers sheepishly. "Did I just doom us all thanks to a clever self-destruct function?"  
  
"I hope not." Justin grabs what's left of the box and shoves the parts into a pocket in case Shawn needs to see it. With a couple jumps, he manages to grab on and pull himself back into the vent. "Thanks. You probably saved those unicorns!" He can't see, but Justin assumes Mikey is grinning again.  
  
He's pretty sure they've saved the day, or close enough, and it surprises him. Maybe he shouldn't second-guess Shawn all the time. After all, they're alien freedom fighters now.

**Author's Note:**

> Moving fic over from lj, I didn't reread this.
> 
> But like. I loved this fic so much. Writing it was fun, and I know I tagged it AU but it's not an AU it's canon, he is a fucking timelord.


End file.
